Epidemiological studies of geographic variations of cancer incidence in Sweden. Choice of variables and statistical units.
The Swedish Cancer-Environment Registry has been used for studies of the parts of cancer incidences and of their variations between subpopulations, which, in a statistical sense, can be 'explained' by environmental variables. In previous studies the dependence of age-standardized incidences in municipalities (279 in Sweden) on population density, socio-economic variables, smoking habits and a variable for 'diagnostic intensity', assumed to allow for variations in under-diagnosing and under-reporting, was studied in, i.a., multiple-regression analyses. Due to intrinsic variation in potentially etiologic factors and in size, municipalities are less suitable as geographic units. Therefore a system was developed to build up, from parishes (about 2,600), pseudo-municipalities standardized with respect to size and some environmental variable(s), in the present study population density. This paper shows, for a number of cancer diseases and for total cancer, the superiority of pseudo-municipalities to municipalities with respect to power of explaining variation and, preliminarily, also incidence.
Ehrenberg
L
L
Department of Radiobiology, Stockholm University, Sweden.
Ekman
G
G
Svensson
A
A
D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008297:Male; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology*; D012042:Registries; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013548:Sweden / Q000453:epidemiology